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BUZZ BANDS

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Shaking the body and brain

In a musical world where nothing anymore is black and white, the Gray Kid is a brighter shade. The 26-year-old, born Steve Cooper, cross-pollinates hip-hop with indie rock, pop with R&B;, irony with candor and humor with pathos -- not to mention sex with politics. He doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator as much he plays off it -- his witty self-absorption, after all, is just a way to get you to shake your booty while he tickles your brain.

“The best stuff strikes the perfect balance between intelligence and cool,” he says. “So many lyrics today have no subtext.... The songs that are classic ones have huge metaphors; they just nail the theme.”

They are also often wildly entertaining, a quality Cooper has achieved in club dates even as he performs as a one-man band -- two, if you count the laptop that churns out the beats and backing tracks he makes. Cooper, who performs tonight and next Thursday at the Plush Lounge at the Key Club, has shown he can carry a room, whether it be on the indie-leaning Eastside or the party-hearty Sunset Strip.

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His self-released album, “... 5, 6, 7, 8” commands the same close attention -- he drops a comment on the Iraq war into his Prince-like croon “Lonely Love;” he name-checks Itzhak Perlman in a bawdy rap about his endowment; and don’t even ask how many Faulks he can work into one rhyme.

Whether his dizzying array of material can translate into a record deal, however, is up in the air. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Cooper moved to L.A. from New York City late last year to gain notice for his music and has embraced his new home. “It’s more buzzy here -- the community feeling was not apparent in New York,” he says. “New York is like an ant farm. Here you can walk up to the top of a hill and look over it.”

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They know the facts of jazz

Tangents can take you to a happy place, and so it was when singer-songwriter Inara George began collaborating with keyboardist Greg Kurstin in a project that would become known as the Bird and the Bee.

“Everybody has different facets of their musical personality, and it’s great to have the opportunity to explore them,” George says, marveling at how their jazzy diversion rose from side project to commodity -- Blue Note Records’ Metro Blue imprint (home to Keren Ann and Suzanne Vega) will release the duo’s debut EP in October, followed by an album in January.

George, the daughter of Little Feat frontman Lowell George, met Kurstin through producer Michael Andrews while working on her 2005 debut “All Rise.” The singer and Kurstin -- originally a jazz pianist who has gone on to work with Beck, the Flaming Lips, Jason Mraz and Nelly Furtado -- found common ground: a love for jazz standards. “At the start it was just two people in a rehearsal space having a nerd-out festival,” says George. Over time, the pair graduated from cover songs to original compositions and recorded an album.

The label interest was startling -- “I’ve never had people in the industry get so nutty about something I’ve done,” George says. But given the charisma and stylistic range exuded by the duo when they played Spaceland on Monday (joined by Joey Waronker on drums and backup singers Megan and Willow Geer-Alsop and Alex Lilly), it’s easy to see why.

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Says George: “You love it when people have a visceral reaction to what you do, and then do something about it.”

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Fast forward

* Touts: Faux-French funsters Nous Non Plus headline Safari Sam’s on Sunday night, with a deep bill including stellar locals Dengue Fever and the rising San Francisco quartet Lovelikefire, featuring dynamic frontwoman Ann Yu.... Speaking of not-exactly-France, the French Kicks play the Troubadour on Monday behind their new release “Two Thousand.” ... Up-and-coming youngsters the Shys and the Colour team up Tuesday night at the Troubadour.... Silversun Pickups play a sold-out show tonight at the Troubadour, concluding a short tour kicking off the release of their debut full-length “Carnavas,” and the Silver Lake quartet also joins the fray Saturday on the estimable bill of the three-day F-Yeah Festival in Echo Park.... Kristin Hersh does double duty at the space housing the Internet music outlet Little Radio on Saturday night, fronting both her projects, 50 Foot Wave and Throwing Muses.... L.A.-based quartet Hurt plays the Roxy tonight behind its new “Vol. 1.” ... And Deadsy will celebrate its sophomore release, “Phantasmagore” at that Sunset Strip venue on Monday.

-- Kevin Bronson

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Recommended downloads

* Download the Gray Kid’s “Lonely Love” at www.graykid.com.

* Stream the Bird and the Bee’s “Again and Again” at www.myspace.com/thebirdandthebee.

* Download “The Contest” by Lovelikefire at www.lovelikefire.com.

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